>>A gamble is really just a really poor / risky investment when you get down to it.

I counted cards and did other advantage gambling. They were not poor investments or any more risky than other investment ventures (in fact, significantly less risky in some areas I specialized in). But it was never investing. It was always gambling.

Investing just means trying to turn your money into more money. When I say "poor" investment I don't mean that it's a bad idea but just that you can't reliably produce returns from that activity. If you could reliably produce returns from, say, playing slot machines, then investment funds would hire people to go out and generate those returns. Purchasing equity in a company is obviously very different legally but in the most basic sense you're making a bet that the company's shares are going to be worth more in the future.

I think that the difference between investing and gambling is that in investing there is at least notionally a capitalistic enterprise like a corporation being invested in.

>>I think that the difference between investing and gambling is that in investing there is at least notionally a capitalistic enterprise like a corporation being invested in.

FX/FOREX investments or futures/commodities trading don't count?

I wouldn't considers those investments as much as I'd consider them savings or hedges. If I buy dollars and put them under my mattress, that's not an investment. I'm not sure why it suddenly becomes an investment if I buy euros and do the same thing.

If you’re holding the dollars because you think they’ll appreciate then it is kind of an investment. Same with euros. Dollars are printed by the federal reserve but if you think about it they’re really securities like any other. It just so happens that this particular security is widely accepted to cover debts in the United States, hence its value. Holding dollars is a bet on the United States. If you thought the US was going to collapse you’d certainly try and hold less dollars.

The different between gambling and investment is that the latter serves a larger economic purpose while the former does not. I agree that in some cases this line might get blurry but I don't think that it's blurry when it comes to, say, playing blackjack in a casino. That is not a poor / risky investment, it's just gambling.